


and perhaps, you will never go home again

by pyrrhlc



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Christmas, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Home for Christmas, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-14 04:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16906317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: She still remembers her parents’ Christmas tree. Perhaps this would be easier if she didn’t. She knows she’s lucky to have got out when she did – to have ended up being fostered by the same woman as Gavroche was – but she doesn’t feel it, because she can still remember. Some memories are beyond death.Against all reason, Éponine goes home for Christmas. Against all logic, she is not entirely alone when she gets there.





	and perhaps, you will never go home again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [witticaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witticaster/gifts).



> Prompt: Character A returns to their birth-town for the holidays. Character B is their estranged childhood best friend.
> 
> Content warning for implied/reference to child abuse, in relation to Éponine and her siblings. Not quite sure how this ended up being so thematically dark, but there you go. It’s not all terrible, I promise you.
> 
> That said: Happy holidays to the excellent Bria! I hope you like this.

The snow is just beginning to fall as Éponine arrives at the station. She looks around briefly, frowning at the falling flakes – then dismisses them, heading into the station proper and hurrying on down the steps. She glances briefly at the red words scrawled against one wall on her way past: _PARIS EST À NOUS_ _!_ In many ways, she does not entirely agree.

She’s going home. Against all logic and reason, she’s going home.

It does not bode well for her insides.

Nobody in particular is responsible for this, she thinks. Nobody is forcing her to take the train out into the suburbs of northern Marseille. She has committed herself to this, she reminds herself, completely of her own free will.

She hopes dearly that she will not come to regret the decision.

The _Gare de Lyon_ is as packed as the _Gare de Lyon_ always is. Éponine elbows her way through the sea of commuters, her suitcase banging behind her on one wheel. She doesn’t want to leave Paris, now, even if it is just for Christmas. She wants to stay in the city, with everyone she knows. And yet—

And yet it is not really a choice. If her will fails her this time around, she will never go home at all. And closure is better than nothing, isn’t it?

She still remembers her parents’ Christmas tree. Perhaps this would be easier if she didn’t. She knows she’s lucky to have got out when she did – to have ended up being fostered by the same woman as Gavroche was – but she doesn’t feel it, because she can still remember. She can remember what it was like before, and this time, the memory of that might just kill her. So here she is, ready to put those memories to bed.

It’s not going to work, and she knows it, but damn her if she’s not going to try.

She collects her tickets (pre-paid, and rather more than she can afford) and passes on through the ticket gates and up the stairs to the platform. It’s a three and a half hour journey from here to Marseille and once the train leaves the platform it will not stop. Once Éponine gets on this train she cannot change her mind.

She’s not going to. No matter how this day ends, she’s not going to turn back now. It’s Christmas Eve, there’s a snowstorm brewing outside, and Éponine has already shuffled Françoise off to the cattery for lack of anyone else to look after him. She’s not going back.

The train pulls into the station. Éponine lifts up her suitcase and pushes her way to the front, finds a seat and stores her belongings. She is ready. Ready to go home for Christmas.

They don’t know she’s coming, and maybe that’s for the best.

*

She reads a book, pulls out her phone to check the news, puts down both and pretends to sleep. When this fails to work, she puts in her earphones and tries staring listlessly out of the window instead, watching the suburbs of Paris as they merge slowly into countryside – and then back again as they approach Marseille. She should be charmed by this, but instead her heart is going a mile a minute and she can hardly think to breathe. There’s hours ahead of her, on this train. She can’t let this journey get to her before it has truly begun.

She concentrates on her breathing again and closes her eyes. She has nothing to fear from them anymore. Today – and tomorrow, if that is at all possible – is naught but closure. She is safe. Gavroche is safe, as is Azelma and the brothers she will never truly know again. They are scattered, now, like snow on the wind – but she has her brother, and can take comfort in the knowledge that he is far away from here. They cannot hurt him now.

Gavroche and the others are too young to truly remember, she thinks – or if they do, they remember a life much removed from what hers once was. Éponine can remember love. Like the Christmas tree, that is what hurts her heart the most. She would rather wipe her memories clean and start again then have this feeling live on in her heart. It is both full and empty at the same time. A space she yearns to fill.

She has not forgiven them – she does not intend to. But they might forgive her for her part in it, if only she comes home for the holidays. There are presents in her bag – carefully chosen and hidden from Gavroche on his visits to the apartment, for fear of ridicule or lack of understanding or despair. She does not know how he would react to this secret of hers – she does not know how she will explain herself when Marianne comes round tomorrow, festive hamper in hand, to find the flat empty and the rooms beyond abandoned. She will be labelled irresponsible after that. She will have _been_ irresponsible, but at least she will have done as she wished. Éponine has always had trouble with taking orders. Small wonder she was the first one to act, after all those years of silence.

*

Éponine steps down onto the platform and breathes in the air around her. It smells and tastes exactly the same as it did in Paris, which perhaps is not altogether surprising. But the station is different. A little more chipped, a little less polished than the one that exists in her memory alone. It’s been years since Éponine set foot here – she can remember standing on the platform with her suitcase, watching as the third and last of the _travailleurs sociaux_ boarded the train with her siblings. Leaving her alone for six long months. Gavroche had come back to her, but not the others. That was when Éponine had felt the most guilt. For calling the police, and setting in motion the whole sorry affair. Why must the others suffer for what she had done? They deserved to be together.

 _You did what needed to be done._ A thousand voices have spoken these words to her since. On the face of it, Éponine believes them. But reality is different from therapy, and Éponine cannot escape all the dark dreams that face her, especially when she is here. She freezes on the platform for a moment, hesitating before joining in the throng. People mill around her without preamble – they don’t see the girl crouched by the station door in a cap and coat with a book on her lap. She had sat hours waiting for them, in the end, before the caseworker returned and told her what was to be done. Éponine had been too young, too young to make decisions. In many ways, she still is. All at once, she is no longer ready to face it.

But it is winter here, and the days are short. Christmas is hours away. She leaves her younger self on the platform and marches towards the exit, dragging behind her the same suitcase she did then. It had both wheels then; knowing her course even when Éponine did not.

_If you had hesitated then, you would be dead now._

She does not say it out loud. The ghost of who she was before is listening. Éponine does not look back as she feeds her ticket through the machine. Instead, she steps out into the street and remembers what it is to breathe.

*

The house is not far from the station – an hour at most. Éponine does not take the bus, as she might have done once, travelling to and from school with a gaggle of siblings trailing just behind. She had fed and dressed each of them every morning without fail, in the years where her parents had first failed to rise in the mornings as they ought. She had done as she must. Éponine had not failed them then, despite what she would do later.

The street grows closer; Éponine stops on the sidewalk for a moment and breathes in the gathering dark. It has already snowed here; snowed and dissolved. Mush sloshes against the sides of her boots, already trodden down by the comings and goings of families and their relatives. The streets of northern Marseille are not the most welcome place, but neither is this street – her street, so long ago – ashamed; the houses, if they are shabby, are proud of it; they were rich once, and seem to hold onto the hope that they will be again.

Éponine treads silently; the only sounds are that of her boots in the slush and the cold rush of cars from the main road beyond. She is not afraid. She is an adult; she is strong, capable of making her own choices. She will not be halted by this.

Her heart tremors nonetheless as she approaches it. Standing squat between 3 and 7. Number 7 stands apparently empty, but there’s a wreath resting on the red front door of number 3, and pale yellow lights in the windows. Éponine smiles at it despite herself.

Her parents’ door bears no such decorations. It looks empty and cold, the windows as flat and ugly as their right-hand neighbour. But Éponine knows they live here still. A muggy kind of lamplight hides behind the drawn curtains, and the side chimney that leads off from the kitchen is belching smoke. They are home. Only a few weeks ago, Éponine had broken into Marianne’s tidy study to seek out the most recent correspondence between her and the caseworker. She knows they still live here. She knows they feel no love towards her, or they would not have done as they did.

She drags her suitcase behind her and up the path anyway, because this is what Éponine does. Her hands tremble as she reaches for the knocker, giving it three hard taps – this is the only admittance she will allow that shows her fear. Éponine swallows and holds her suitcase just a little tighter. The door opens.

“ _Bonsoir, mamam_ ,” she says, quietly, although the woman standing in front of her does not look like her mother. She spies her father only a little further back, hunched behind her mother like an old man with a cane. Éponine inclines her head. _“Papa_.”

“What the hell are you doing here,” her mothers asks, except it is not a question – it is too blunt for that. Éponine draws in a deep breath and faces her, putting her suitcase between them on instinct. She is standing on their doorstep; stepping down would mean making the woman in front of her even taller, and Éponine does not want that. She holds her ground.

“I came to visit you,” she says, watching as her father squints at her from around her mother’s bulk, saying nothing and yet saying everything with his eyes. They are cold and blue, sharp as a knife point – the opposite of Éponine’s muddy brown irises. She does not look like her parents; she could never hold herself like her mother does now. They are taller and greater than her but they do not stand straight. To do so would be to pay attention to her, and Éponine’s parents have not done this for many years. She clears her throat and adds, hoarsely, “It’s Christmas. I wanted to – to make amends.”

Her mother snorts. It is more than just dismissive; Éponine is beneath her contempt. She eyes her up and down before speaking the words that hammer Éponine’s heart all the more: “You can never fix what you’ve done. You tore our family apart.”

Her father just looks at her. How many times had he raised a hand to her? And now he just looks. It is his greatest talent. Ignoring reality is her mother’s.

“I did what I thought was right,” she says. Even as she speaks, she is thinking of all the times this guilt has punished her, kept her awake during Christmas time and through New Year’s. It is not her fault. After years of practice and therapy, she knows that this is the truth. It was not her fault, but she cannot convince her mother of that now. At no point during their separation did anyone try to pry the wormwood out of this woman’s heart. She is stuck fast; Éponine knows it for a certainty. But at least the latter is still here to tell her so.

It has been seven years, she realises with a start. Seven years, and now both of her parents are bent beyond her recognition. If she were ever able to recognise them.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and means it in all the ways they never will. “Can I come in?”

The hallway is bare of tinsel; her house doesn’t believe in Christmas or goodwill anymore.

“No,” her mother says, and slams the door.

Éponine looks at it for a moment, studying the peeling paint, the rusted nail where their own Christmas wreath used to hang, all those years ago. She can barely remember it. Fleeing for the police is all the more potent; fleeing and hoping that her siblings would still be there when she returned. Éponine was the first to break the silence – and the last to return. She has said goodbye a second time, now; her parents won’t ever open that door to her again. Éponine has to be content with that. She has to be.

She starts crying a moment or two before she realises it; slow sobs at first, shoulders and chest heaving, before the nightmare of it overcomes her again and she lets go of the suitcase, allowing it to fall to the ground as she stretches her hands before her face, the flagstones beneath her feet blurred by the weight of so many years, so many awful Christmases—

“Éponine?”

She sniffles, drawing in a breath to turn towards the voice – then stops. There is no-one at the gate. Rather, there is someone at the fence.

She remembers this face.

“Cosette,” she says, and cringes inwardly at the thickness of her voice. Her childhood friend is stood before her, seven years older now, and she is no less beautiful than she was – Éponine’s heart cannot take much more this evening. “Cosette, you—”

“I heard raised voices,” she says, gesturing to the window behind her, the twin of Éponine’s own. She smiles tentatively, leaning a little over the fence. She is much taller now than she was. “And yours. I almost can’t believe it.” She kneels down, pushing aside one of the fence panels with a hand – it slides away easily, as it always had done, no more rotten for the years than the warmth in Cosette’s kind smile. She gestures towards Éponine, inviting her closer. “Here. Pass me your suitcase. You don’t have a hat, and it’s cold.”

She does not ask about Éponine’s parents. If she has been living here these past seven years still, then perhaps she doesn’t need to. Éponine does not question her. She slides the suitcase through the gap, more for old times’ sake than anything else, and then pushes herself through after it. The curtain that shades the front of her old home twitches once and then goes still. Happy to see the back of her, then. Well, so be it. In the end, perhaps Éponine will be happy to see the back of them too.

“Here,” Cosette says, reaching out a hand to pull Éponine away from the hedge. It is taller now, and broader, much broader than when she had seen it last. Cosette’s hand is warm against her skin. She represses the urge to shiver as her friend guides her over towards the front door – carrying the suitcase herself, as if Éponine were not already perfectly capable. But she does not mind. She has never minded Cosette’s gentle kindness, nor her warmth. Tears well up unbidden and she brushes them away with a sleeve.

Seven years is nothing. She still loves Cosette, with all her heart. She wonders if Cosette still loves her back.

It had been a secret game between the two of them – secret, because Éponine’s father would use any kind of flaw or weakness to torment her, and a game because it always seemed to Éponine that she loved Cosette a little more than was sensible, than could be achieved by two fourteen-year-old girls on the cusp of going their separate ways. Cosette had brought violets and aster into class to give to her; Éponine, in turn, had been Cosette’s first true kiss, in the bottom of Fauchelevent’s garden where all the wild and beautiful things grew. Infinity could not begin to describe the depth of their friendship and love for one another. Wherever Cosette was, Éponine would follow. Until she could not follow, that is.

Cosette had not been the full reason for Éponine’s hesitation, but she was part of it. Éponine had known what telling the caseworker at school would mean. Cosette would be taken from her, and she would be alone again. Alone and without the best thing that had ever happened to her life.

And yet, by some miracle, Cosette is still here. Her thoughts are interrupted by the latter’s quiet knock against the front door. There is a shuffling and a scraping sound from just behind.

“Papa?” Cosette asks the wood. “Papa, Éponine is here.”

The door opens. Had Cosette truly shut the door wholly behind her, before stepping out into the street to face Éponine’s worst fears? It would seem so. Her heart shakes briefly with love.

“Cosette,” says a voice from behind the door, opened suddenly wide. The figure there turns slowly, taking her in. “And Éponine. What a lovely surprise.”

Éponine blinks. “Monsieur Fauchelevent,” she says. Her parents are not the only ones who have aged; the hair of Cosette’s father is nearly white, his beard now longer than Éponine has ever seen it. She brushes a strand of hair awkwardly out of one eye, suddenly hyper-aware of how she must look to him; dishevelled, worn-out, teary-eyed. This is not how she would have chosen to greet Cosette’s father again, but perhaps it is the more honest way. It is the only option left to her, now.

“She’s coming in,” Cosette says to him, leaving her father with no room for argument. She pulls Éponine’s suitcase over the threshold, still bumping merrily along on one wheel, then gestures again. “Come on, now! It’s snowing again. You’ll catch your death.”

Éponine nods without speaking, following her in. She is greeted immediately by decorations; sprigs of holly tucked away into picture frames, gold and silver tinsel draped across the hallway mirror, pale bronze lights wrapped around a hatstand. The sight of that alone almost makes her begin crying again. Cosette tugs impatiently at her arm.

“Come on! In here. Papa will make you a drink, won’t you Papa?”

Monsieur Fauchelevent – Jean, Éponine corrects herself with some difficulty – smiles and shakes his head at both of them; Cosette, radiant as always, and Éponine, dishevelled beside her, as small in her outdoor clothes as she can make herself amidst the brightness of Cosette’s warm house. “I suppose I can manage,” he says gruffly but with a smile, and suddenly Éponine is back in Cosette’s sitting room again, staring up at a tree that is so unlike what she has grown used to after all these years that she immediately begins to cry. Cosette hushes her softly, wrapping her gentle arms around her – Éponine cries a little more for that, in receiving now what she had thought for so many years lost. Cosette’s shoulder is soaked with her tears; Éponine keeps on crying regardless.

“How—” she gets out, and then stops again, for fear of lapsing back into tears. “How can you be here? I don’t understand.”

Cosette smiles into her shoulder; the familiarity of the gesture brings a hiccup into Éponine’s throat. “It’s Christmas Eve,” she says, half-whispering into Éponine’s hair. “I’ve come home for Christmas. I always come home.”

Éponine shakes her head at this. It seems impossible that Cosette should not be gone, that her father should not have moved out after all these years. What had he thought of her, she wonders, after they had all been taken away? She hiccups again into Cosette’s shoulder. All this time, she had been plotting to come to the wrong house; she should’ve headed here straight away, should’ve tried her best to return here, to see Cosette, to make amends. But it would seem there are no amends to make.

“All these years, and you were here all along,” she says. She lifts her head, raising her gaze to Cosette, dark hair tangled together with hers. “God, Cosette, I’ve been so _stupid_.”

“No,” Cosette whispers back. The door to the living room creaks; she steps back slightly, allowing her father to pass by and place three mugs upon the small table in front of the couch and armchair. She slips her hand into Éponine’s and does not let go. “No, you haven’t been stupid. You’ve been _brave_ , Éponine. So very, very brave.”

*

Éponine sits restlessly on the patterned couch, a mug of hot chocolate cupped between her hands, but it is not nearly as warm as the weight of Cosette beside her, her thigh pressing up against Éponine’s own. Her kind voice stills the tremor in her hands as easily as breathing might. Éponine has never wanted to kiss anyone so badly.

“You can stay here tonight,” she says. Cosette’s father is sat opposite in the armchair; he nods as if her intrusion is barely a problem, barely an inconvenience. “There won’t be any trains tomorrow, but Papa could drive you back if you wanted to.”

Éponine shakes her head. “I couldn’t ask that of you.” she says, despite the urge to say _yes! Yes, please, take me away from here._ “It’s a long trip, especially at Christmas.”

“So was coming here,” Fauchelevent counters, and Éponine cringes a little at the kindness in his voice. She does not deserve this. “There will be people missing you, I’m sure.”

Her stomach spasms at that. Marianne will come calling for her in the morning, to take both her and Gavroche to dinner, as she has done every year for the past six. Gav will not forgive her for missing it. She has never let him down before. Éponine has always put her siblings first; now she has done the opposite, she doesn’t know what to think. She sets the empty mug down on the table and buries her hands in her hair. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, the words sprouting of their own accord, “They’re better off—” She chokes on the sentiment and groans aloud. It doesn’t matter, because she cannot be back before Marianne arrives, and Gavroche will still be disappointed. He would have found out her secret eventually, in any case. What had she been thinking? “Marianne is going to kill me.”

“Marianne?” Cosette questions sweetly, and Éponine’s heart spasms again, because Cosette knows nothing of this, nothing of what these past seven years have been, for better or for worse—

“Is she your foster mother?” she probes, even more gently, and Éponine starts, remembering everything all at once. Cosette’s mother is dead. Fauchelevent has not always been her father. Slowly, she shakes her head.

“Gav’s,” she croaks, “Not mine.” Not anymore. She is too old to have a mother, now, in the eyes of the law. But nobody ever wants the older kids, she thinks bitterly. At fifteen, she had already been too much to handle. She should be grateful Marianne ever let her in at all.

She should be grateful for so much, but can’t be, because at the end of the day Éponine is still bitterly unloved by the people living in the house next door, and always will be. She cannot draw closure from this.

“Hey, hey,” Cosette soothes, wrapping an arm around her, and Éponine realises with a start that she is crying again, tears sliding silently down her cheeks. She does not know what to expect of herself anymore, or if it is even right to. She has made a horrible mistake in coming here tonight.

Horrible, but for the warmth and kindness of someone she has long-missed, holding her like she has not been held for years. Éponine stops crying but does not open her eyes. Cosette beside her smells faintly of bubblegum and roses. Éponine cannot let the feeling go.

In the midst of this, Cosette’s father stands up and quietly excuses himself, displaying perfect etiquette without the words. Cosette’s hand wraps itself a little tighter around Éponine’s wrist.

“It’s OK,” she says, for all that it isn’t, “It’s OK.”

Éponine leans her head against Cosette’s chest, not quite daring to look into her eyes. She sits there silently as Cosette rubs her hand in circles across Éponine’s back – a lullaby without the words. Éponine sighs deeply.

“I love you,” she breathes out into the silence of the sitting room, almost unbidden. Not a sound can be heard apart from the ticking of the clock atop the mantelpiece, and even that is silent in comparison to the rapid beating of her heart. “I love you. I’m sorry I left.”

“You couldn’t help it,” Cosette says softly. The hand on Éponine’s back pauses as Cosette shuffles in her seat, turning her face towards Éponine’s own. She presses a kiss against Éponine’s forehead without preamble. “You’re so much more than they ever were, Ponine. Don’t forget it.”

*

They spend the night in separate rooms, because Cosette’s bed is still a single and she has never brought anyone home for Christmas in the seven years since Éponine went away for good. Éponine isn’t sure how to feel about that. For her, there has never been anyone like Cosette – not that she was holding out for her, exactly, but then again…

She had not expected Cosette to wait for her. But Cosette had waited anyway, it would seem. Éponine is loathe to clutch at hope where there might be none, so she says nothing. She does not expect. Cosette and her father have done so much for her already – to think there might be more to Cosette’s kindness in particular would be nothing but folly.

Perhaps they both seem to think so, because it is well past midnight by the time the door of the guest bedroom sneaks open a crack and Cosette tiptoes her way into the room. Éponine slides out of bed. She has not been asleep, for her heart too has been waiting, unconscious of expectations – unconscious of everything except love. Cosette’s mouth dimples into a smile as their eyes catch.

“You look like a ghost,” Éponine whispers to her, because that is the truth: moonlight spills softly across the floor, let in by half-closed curtains, and it rests in Cosette’s hair and on her skin like it belongs there, crowning her a queen of the very night. Cosette’s smile widens; she steps towards her and takes hold of Éponine’s hands, leaning forward to press her forehead against Éponine’s own. Their breath mingles in the air between them like frost.

“I didn’t say it back,” she whispers to Éponine, her eyes huge and beautiful in the dark. Éponine looks back at her with a question on her lips.

“Say what?”

“This,” Cosette replies, stretching upwards to press her mouth up against Éponine’s. Éponine freezes for a moment, her hands fumbling for Cosette’s hair, for the bare skin at the back of her neck. This kiss is so much more than all the ones that have come before it. In this moment, Éponine feels so much more than just loved. She lets out a gasp as Cosette’s mouth moves away from hers, trailing down towards her neck, kissing her all the while. Éponine does not want to let go of her, now or ever.

Cosette smiles against her skin – Éponine feels it – then pulls back, lifting her head up and cupping her hands around Éponine’s jaw. Éponine’s skin tingles with the effort of resisting another kiss. She manages it, in the end, but only barely.

“I’m so glad you came back,” Cosette says, as Éponine trembles again. “I missed you.” It is the middle of the night and the world beyond is thick with snow and moonlight. It is easy to pretend that this is the reason for their shivering. Éponine wraps her arms around Cosette’s waist and holds her closer than she has ever dared before.

“I missed you too,” she says. She wants to say more, but the words don’t seem to be there; Éponine is left grasping at empty air with every attempt. Cosette understands anyway, because seven years are nothing to the two of them in this moment. She may as well have never left.

“Tomorrow—” Cosette starts, but Éponine shushes her, placing her hands atop Cosette’s and lifting her palms gently from her face. She squeezes them tight; all of Cosette is freezing cold, as is Éponine herself. Her eyes flicker towards the bed.

“I don’t want to think about tomorrow,” she says, “not yet. I just want to be with you, and—”

Cosette smiles; Éponine’s voice falters. She takes Éponine by the hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it before leading her onwards.

“Tonight, then,” she says, and who is Éponine to care if her father finds them tomorrow tangled up in each other’s arms? He had known then and he knows now – there are worse things to wake up to on Christmas.

The single bed will barely admit them both; Éponine clings tight to Cosette throughout the night, scarcely moving except to look up and gaze at her face, still drenched in the pale light from beyond the curtains and looking so much more ethereal than a ghost.

 _I have not failed_ , she thinks, and no other part of her mind comes forward to contradict her. Éponine sighs again and reaches for Cosette’s lithe hand; their fingers clasp together in a way that suggests nothing in the world will ever part them, and with a little more courage, Éponine supposes that nothing will.


End file.
